North Carolina Teacher Fired After Having Students Share Used Needles :: Personal Injury Attorneys and Lawyers in Charlotte, NC

Attorney Matthew R. Arnold answering the question: “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”

In a recent and troubling episode in Spring Lake, North Carolina, one high school biology teacher is now without a job after she allowed students to share needles as part of an in-class experiment. The teacher, Miyoshi McMillian, was fired after officials learned that she had her students prick their fingers with lancing needles and then leave them on their lab trays for other students to use later in the day.

The horrible incident occurred because McMillian was teaching the student’s about blood types and the finger pricks were meant to allow the students to identify their own blood types. The problem was that rather than properly disposing of the used lancets, McMillian simply had the students wipe the used lancets off with rubbing alcohol before students in a subsequent class reused them. The problem with this approach is that alcohol is not always enough to kill certain blood-borne viruses such as hepatitis or HIV.

A spokesperson for the Harnett County School District said that the incident was troubling for all those who were informed about it. The district not only does not want children sharing needles, but also said that any type of human blood should be kept out of high school classrooms.

The incident only came to light because McMillian offered students who did not want to participate in the experiment a chance to leave the room and write a five-page paper. One girl, who said she was concerned about the exercise, then left them room and called her parents. The girl’s parents then called the school’s principal who later fired McMillian.

Since her firing, it has been revealed that McMillian was not a fully licensed teacher, but was instead subbing in the classroom for the semester while she worked to earn her full teaching certificate. McMillian says that she believes she was unfairly scapegoated in the incident saying that the lancets were already in the classroom and that if school officials had not wanted them to be used they shouldn’t have been available in the first place.

School officials have sent letters home to the affected students and suggested that parents take them to get their blood tested. The hope is that no permanent harm was done to the unsuspecting students who likely assumed their teacher was watching out for their best interest.

Matthew Arnold is a Managing Member with Arnold & Smith, PLLC where he focuses his practice on Personal Injury, Family Law and Business Litigation. Mr. Arnold began his career handling insurance defense litigation for several major insurance companies. He also went on to handle business litigation cases and high value mortgage fraud cases, primarily in Superior Court.

Mr. Arnold grew up in Charlotte, graduating from Providence Senior High School and continued his education at Belmont Abbey College on a basketball scholarship. After graduating cum laude he attended law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a full academic scholarship. In his spare time, Mr. Arnold enjoys golfing and spending time on the North Carolina Coast with his wife and three young children: two daughters and one son.